


dust to dust

by nadin



Category: Snowpiercer (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25201063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadin/pseuds/nadin
Summary: “Do you ever think about it? About how when something dies on Snowpiercer, it’s truly gone?”After the bees die, Melanie Cavill and Bennett Knox share a moment, or a few.
Relationships: Melanie Cavill/Bennett Knox
Comments: 33
Kudos: 63





	dust to dust

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the first time in a very long time that I wrote something that's not Wonder Woman, and it's also my very first Snowpiercer story. Hopefully not the last.  
> Please be kind :) 
> 
> (No beta, all typos are mine)

There was a cruel, twisted irony to watching the world die for the second time.

The first time, when the freeze had just started, it had been terrifying beyond anything, but there had been hope, too. Not much, but enough for people to want to fight, even if they had to fight something against which they could not win.

On Snowpiercer though, losing life was all the more devastating. Once something was gone here, it was  _ gone _ .

By the time Melanie Cavill made it to the apiary, it was too late.

By then, the entire bee colony was dead.

They would run tests and, in a few days, they would know what it was that had caused it. But what would it matter, really? Knowing the reason would not bring the bees back.

When she returned to the Engine, hours later, only Ben was there. She tried to remember if it was Javi’s day off, or his break time, but between the petty drama in the first over the marmalade served for breakfast, some technical issues that had demanded her personal attention down the train and then the bees, she could no longer remember.

She felt Ben glance at her as she stepped towards the kettle, desperate to chase away the mother of all headaches that had started building behind her eyes in the early afternoon and was getting progressively worse as the day wore on.

Miraculously, there still were days when everything about the train was so easy, Melanie wondered how could she ever doubt the entire idea. And then there were days like today, when nothing was right and she wished, deep down, that they would derail and fall into a canyon and it would all be over, at last.

“Mel?”

She startled and dropped the cup that shattered at her feet. Deep in thought, she hadn’t noticed Ben approaching her and now he was right before her, his eyes searching hers and a slight frown creasing the skin between his brows.

“Hey, what happened?”

She looked up. He would have understood if she told him. He was good at listening—it was one of the many things she liked so about him. But he was good at other things, too, and she didn’t want to talk now. She wanted to forget.

Her fingers curled around the back of his neck as she pulled him towards her, her lips crashing against his. The force of it sent him back a step, but his surprise was fleeting and then his hands were on her hips, sliding up her back, pushing against her until she was pressed into the counter, his mouth hot against hers. Melanie made a sound in the back of her throat, her fingers gripping a fistful of his hair, heat surging through her veins, clouding her mind.

“I need you,” she murmured against his lips as his hands cupped her face, her voice breathless and raw, and ache and exhaustion of the past  _ hours-days-years _ boiling everything down to something she couldn’t quite define. Something primal and needy and  _ now. _

Ben nodded, kissed her again, slower, drawing all air out of her longs and leaving her aching for more. Kissed her until she was dazed and drunk and dizzy.

“Javi…” she started, holding on to the least thread of reason.

“Is coming back in 2 minutes,” he breathed.

She smiled; let her eyes drop shut. “Good.”

\---

It didn’t surprise her that they ended up in the same bed. It wasn’t the first time it happened, and wouldn’t be the last time, Melanie suspected. It was good. God, it was so damn good to feel human again, not just a part of the train, inherent to its seamless workings. To be her and to feel alive, wanted, needed beyond the demands of people who looked right through her.

In the world that was so cruel and cold and set on killing you at every chance it got, warmth and affection were in short supply. The need for them amplified all the more by wondering every day of their goddamn lives if it was going to be their last one.

She envied the first class, who lived in blind oblivion, certain that the train was as solid as Noah’s Ark, destined to carry them into the bright future. She wondered, too, what they would say, what they would do if they knew the truth—that one day, the train was going to run out of spare parts that could replace the faulty or broken ones. That there was nothing eternal about it, their entire existence hanging by a thread.

“You’re remarkable, you know that?” Ben said, her voice low and drowsy, his fingers threading idly through her hair and drawing patterns over her bare back.

Crammed into the too-narrow bunk, Melanie was half-draped over him, pressed to him curve for curve. She didn’t mind the close quarters, or the warmth of his skin, or the sound of his heartbeat beneath her cheek. Didn’t mind feeling drowsy and relaxed herself, the tension headache she had been carrying for the past week nowhere to be found.

If she could think of a moment, after the freeze, that she could freeze in time—pun intended, god help her—this would be it, hands down.

She closed her eyes, feeling a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

“I remember you mentioning that before,” she said, softly, her fingers tracing lazy circles over his chest. “More than once.”

He laughed—something that she felt more than heard, a reverberation in his chest that had her turning her head to press a kiss to his skin.

“It wasn’t your fault, Mel. The bees… it wasn’t your fault.”

It didn’t surprise her that he knew—word travelled fast on Snowpiercer.

Still, she lifted her head to look at him, to see if he’d meant it, not sure she could take fake platitude when she felt so raw on the inside, half-fearful she would see resentment in his gaze.

But his eyes were kind and full of devotion she wasn’t sure she deserved.

That the freeze would bring her and Bennett Knox together, that something good could come out of this never-ending hell, was perhaps the one thing that never quite ceased to take her by surprise. Something that she’d been waiting to be taken away from her, like everything else had been.

She set her hand on his sternum and rested her chin on the back of his, her eyes searching his face.

“Do you ever think about it? About how when something dies on Snowpiercer, it’s truly gone?” she asked as he reached over to brush her hair from her face. “I’m not upset because the first will give us shit about not having honey for their toast at breakfast. Which they will. I’m upset because there are no bees left in this world. Everything here is one of a kind, and it is so hard to preserve it. All this life we take for granted—it’s so much more fragile than anyone thinks.”

He twisted a strand of her hair around his finger, his brows knitting together as he considered her words.

“I used to,” Ben admitted after a minute or so. “I used to think about it all the time, in the early days. I’m not sure I can do it anymore. We would all drown if we continue thinking about it.”

He lifted his eyes to hers.

Melanie brushed her thumb along the line of his jaw, over the stubble coating his skin.

“You know what I do think about?” he asked, after another moment.

“What?”

“That a bee colony can’t survive without a queen.”

Her smile widened as she shook her head a little.

“All this time, you’ve been just walking around with that knowledge in your head, not saying anything?”

“I’m just seeing a pattern there, is all.” His face grew serious as he swept his thumb along the ridge of her cheekbone. “Without you, we would all be dead.”

She felt her breath rush out of her lungs, a familiar wave of panic rising up her spine, curling over each vertebra.

“What if it’s not enough?” she whispered.

He didn’t respond to that.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked instead.

Melanie glanced around the room – cramped and never neat, filled with memories from the past as well as everything she needed to make the future possible. For the millionth time, she regretted narrow bunks she had grown to despise so, wondering if she would ever get to sleep in a proper bed again without feeling like she might end up on the floor every damned night.

If he stayed neither of them would have any sleep.

“There’s not enough space here,” she said. 

He smiled a little. “Never stopped us before.”

She lowered her head down, feeling Ben tighten his hold on her, although it was the brush of his lips to the crown of her head that undid her, bringing the tears that had been sitting behind her eyes for hours. It was too much—the feeling, the aching, the tenderness in the world that often felt so harsh and made of nothing but sharp edges. She felt a sob clawing its way from somewhere deep inside her, a white-hot lump in her throat that had her turning her face into his chest to muffle the sound of it as her entire essence felt like it was being cracked open.

She’d thought she would never feel that way again, not after her daughter—

She cried, quietly and without theatrics, until there were no tears left to cry.

\---

When Melanie awoke, the first thing she noticed was that her throat was scratchy and her eyes felt like someone had crawled into her tight quarters at night and rubbed sand all over them. There was a headache somewhere there as well, undoubtedly planning its grand entrance when she least needed it later in the day. Something she would have to wear the same way she wore her blue suit.

But the hum of the train was steady, the room quiet, and it comforted her, smoothing out the edges of the emotion that had been ripped apart the night before.

The second thing that registered with her was that she was alone in her bunk, but when she blinked her eyes open and rubbed the remnants of sleep out of them, she found Ben passed out on the floor on a pile of blankets he must have dug out of her closet. For his own sake as much as her own, Melanie mused as she studied him, the shock of hair that begged for a cut hanging over his forehead. He had told her before that she was a kicker, and frankly, she had no reason not to believe him.

Her chest constricted, something inside of her unfurling at the sight of him. He could have left, she thought, though she suspected that he wouldn’t have even if she’d asked him to.

Her eyes moved over his features, over the line of his shoulders, the bow of his lips, slightly parted. He didn’t snore, points for that. His breathing was deep, even, steady. And she considered, for a moment, tossing her own blanket aside and sliding under his.

“I can feel you staring, you know,” he muttered without opening his eyes, his voice thick with sleep.

Melanie smiled, against herself.

“Thought you’d slip out at night,” she said, folding her arm under her head.

He cracked one eye open and then another, his hand scrubbing down his face before he looked up at her.

“If we were in college, I likely would have,” he admitted, making her chuckle. “Jesus, what time is it?”

She glanced past him, towards her perpetually crowded desk.

“A little past six.”

Ben groaned and dropped his head back. “Not even my shift,” he breathed, rubbing his eyes. Yet, when he looked up at her, his expression was earnest, his gaze concerned as it searched hers. “Are you okay?”

“Am now.”

She reached her hand out, and he clasped it in his, weaving his fingers through hers.

“Good.” He kissed her fingertips, and then winced a little. “But the next time, we do it at my place and you sleep on the floor.”

She let out a watery laugh.

“Deal.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always welcome :) Or just talk to me about Snowpiercer. 
> 
> I'm also on [Tumblr](https://hiraeth-doux.tumblr.com/), sporadically. Please say hi if you feel like it!


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